A Study in Mary
by ClassyGirlsWearPearls
Summary: A study in the different identities of the woman known best as Mary Morstan.


A.G.R.A. grew up in the panhandle of Oklahoma, surrounded by oil rigs, trailers, and vast nothingness. She had a deep Southern drawl that was more refined than the specific twang of the area courtesy of her mother who had lived in Biloxi and Oxford for nursing school before meeting her veterinarian father and following him to the small town he couldn't bear to leave.

She chafed under the small town and its people. She was far more intelligent than the other people in town and longed to go somewhere more exciting and do something other than stare at a flat, barren wasteland for the rest of her life. She said this out loud when her mother was alive, but once her mother had died she stopped. She had talked about leaving because she knew that her mother would be there for her father when she broke out of the confines of the town, but she was all that was left her father and she needed to stay for him. She couldn't have predicted the day that the CIA came to her on one of her last days of undergrad classes at Oklahoma with a job offer and a chance to escape. Her father never understood, but he selflessly let her fly. He let her serve. _I serve at the pleasure of the President._

She looked everything like her mother, which was one of the most difficult things that she had to accept when her cover was blown and she had to completely change her identity. She had been in Russia, trying to infiltrate both Russian forces and Chechen separatist groups when she was discovered and nearly assassinated. She had killed enough of the people she was there to kill to feel somewhat satisfied with what she had done, but she chafed again under the knowledge that she hadn't completely finished her mission. She had never left a mission incomplete before.

She was brought back to Langley to be changed into someone else. Her father was brought there as well under the pretense that he was bringing her body home. One small kindness from the agency that had destroyed her life, she thought bitterly. She had blood on her hands because of the people in the large building with lead walls that A.G.R.A. would never leave. She had killed for a living. Her parents saved lives for a living. She killed without question and with a smile on her face because she was doing it for her country. _I serve at the pleasure of the President._

Her father had clutched her tightly then pulled back to stare at her face like it was the only thing in the world. He cried. She didn't. She didn't cry because she needed to be strong. She didn't cry because she was an assassin and assassins don't cry when someone is dying. A.G.R.A. was dying and grief had been beaten out of her. She soaked up the tears her father cried into her neck and wished that she could feel something for his sake. She told him she was going to be a nurse, and he cried harder. He asked what her new first name would be, but she couldn't tell him. They hadn't told her yet. They knew that she would tell him, and that was too dangerous.

When her father had been dragged away in hysterics, she was alone in a small conference room. These were the final minutes of A.G.R.A. and she didn't want them to be spent crying or emoting in some way. She breathed deeply while she awaited the team that was to change her. She would no longer be a carbon copy of her mother. Her hair was dyed blonde and cut away. She held onto a small clump of the brown hair and later stuck it in a locket. She still looked too much like herself, so her nose was shaved down into a more delicate shape and her chin was adjusted. Her eyebrows were implants.

When she was finally allowed out of the room she looked nothing like her mother. For the betterment of the world. _I serve at the pleasure of the President_.

Mary Morstan doesn't cry until she gets to the apartment – _flat_ – that is set up for her in London. She stumbles blindly until she finds the immaculate bathroom and vomits before she curls up on the bathroom floor and sobs body-wracking sobs while curled up in the fetal position on the cold tile. She is going to be a healer, not a killer, and she scares herself when she realizes that she loved killing people for a purpose. _I serve at the pleasure of the President_. _For Queen and country._ She knows no other way to help people and to keep them safe.

Two weeks later Mary begins nursing school and she learns a new way of life. It is so dull and it would be easy to slip a patient something just so she can watch the life go out of someone. Mary overcomes this feeling over the course of a year and the moment that she fully accepts that she will never kill again is the moment she finally becomes Mary Morstan. Mary is content with the mundaneness of her life and nurses people back to health. It gives her purpose. _For Queen and country._ It doesn't have the same force as the other phrase but she keeps thinking it so she doesn't think the other one.

Mary meets John Watson on her first day at work. She loves him immediately. He's sad and broken and Mary _needs_ him. Mary needs him because Mary is addicted to fixing things and this man is going to need fixing for the rest of his life. Mary is outgoing and asks John out two weeks after they meet. John accepts, but there is no light in his eyes. When Mary makes him dinner the next night, he smiles a bit and Mary realizes that she has never seen the man smile. Mary kisses him gently on her couch and she tingles all the way to her extremities. Mary holds him softly against her and revels in the feeling of this man who is too sad and too bony in her arms. Mary coaxes him out of his shell and she watches him fall in love with her. She refuses to have sex with him until he says so. She claims that she is still skittish from an abusive relationship, and John is too blinded to see past the lie that Mary is telling him. The moment that John tells Mary that he loves her, Mary feels like she is skydiving and forces herself to cry because Mary is able to cry. John makes love to Mary, and they both cry for different reasons. John is heartbroken because he is closing that chapter of his life. Mary cries because there is someone who loves her moving in her and now he needs her too.

Mary listens to John and uses what he tells her to put him back together. There are so many holes in John Watson, but the only visible one is his scar. As Mary stores the information away to help John, a part of her falls away and whispers that she could store this to use against John. She could destroy John Hamish Watson slowly with everything she has. She could destroy him quickly if she wanted, but that would be too kind. If he is going to be destroyed, he must be destroyed slowly.

Mary touches her locket. When Mary became British, she read the entire _Harry Potter_ series, and she regards her locket as a Horcrux, holding a piece of a soul she killed. If she wears it for too long, the darkness begins to set in. Mary takes off the necklace and puts it in the back of her sock drawer. It's too tempting. She's doing this for the greater good. _For Queen and country._

John notices that Mary doesn't wear the necklace anymore, and she comments that she misses her mother even though she died before Mary could form memories. The hair is from someone dead, and it hurts. John gathers Mary in his arms, and he cries for her. She's happy someone can feel, and as John cries she thinks of ways that she could bring him down.

John proposes after many interruptions and Mary selfishly accepts. She accepts because Mary is in love with John, but Mary has competition now that Sherlock Holmes has returned from the dead. There is now someone else to pick up the pieces of John Watson's life, and now that Sherlock is back he has fewer pieces to put back into place. There are fewer holes that give access to John Watson's pressure points, which means that she must destroy him little by little so he can continue to need her.

They marry and Mary Morstan becomes Mary Watson. Mary is pregnant. There is something to tie Mary to John for the rest of their lives, and she smiles, knowing that her child can be another pressure point for John.

Things fall apart for Mary quickly, and the two sides erupt into a war. It is hell. Mary could do something rational and could handle this in a legal way, or she could come out and kill again. She knows that when she starts, she won't be able to stop again, and knowing this she attempts to kill again. She tells herself that A.G.R.A. shoots Sherlock Holmes with a smile on her face, but truthfully she can't tell if it was A.G.R.A. or if Mary Watson is tainted. John Watson will need Mary if Sherlock dies, and John Watson will need Mary if Sherlock is alive but injured.

Sherlock Holmes lives and she tells him during his drugged haze that he will not tell John. Sherlock Holmes does not tell John directly for Mary's sake. John is still mad and moves back into 221B. That is the night where Mary learns to cry for real. He never forgives her, and Mary doesn't know if he doesn't forgive Mary or if he doesn't forgive A.G.R.A. She never finds out.

They take the baby before she can see it. Her suspicion is that it was a girl like the scan indicated, but she can't be sure. She heard the cry of a child ripped from her and into the harsh, bright world, but a few seconds later there was nothing.

John doesn't come to see the woman with no identity once again. Sherlock Holmes does though. He stares at her and then tells her to tell him what was on that flash drive. She shot him. She owes him.

She recounts the story of A.G.R.A. and he watches with a blank expression. He has no sympathy. Mary doesn't think she deserves his sympathy, but she isn't Mary anymore and therefore Mary has no say in her opinions anymore. That almost makes her sad.

Sherlock Holmes leaves her after she's done without a word, but he turns around and mentions that her baby will be raised by her ex-husband and the man who stood beside him at their wedding. Sherlock knows that this hurts the broken woman in front of him and smirks before leaving with a dramatic swish of his great coat.

They keep her in a private room in a building with no windows for three months. Mycroft Holmes delivers a dossier with a new identity. She doesn't look at it. She hate fucks the Iceman for hours and he pity fucks her before she is transported to her new home on a small island in the middle of the ocean. She realizes that this is a place where protected criminals who have blown their second chance are sent. She doesn't ever learn her new name. She weeps for her child and for all of the lives that she has lost. A.G.R.A. lost her mother to cancer and her father to the United States. She loses herself to Mary Morstan, who later loses herself to Mary Watson. Mary Watson loses her husband and child and a man who claims to be a sociopath picks them up. This woman loses her mind. She speaks to no one and refuses to eat.

She is found emaciated and dead on the beach wearing a locket with a small clump of dark brown hair in it. In her hand there is a piece of paper with eight words on it that she used to justify her whole life.

_I serve at the pleasure of the President._


End file.
